Sharon Osbourne has launched a scathing attack on ‘The X Factor’ and Simon Cowell, ahead of her return to the show later in the year.
While the new series of ‘X Factor’ is currently underway, Sharon is yet to make an appearance, and will instead be joining the panel later in the run, as an “impartial judge” during live shows.
Speaking to Howard Stern on his radio show, she shared her relief at not having to take part in the audition process this year, admitting: “I don’t have to have those kids singing in my face. They all suck, and it’s like: is this karaoke or what?”
Commenting that she was now at the “end of her contract”, she continued: “It’s no holds barred. It’s like, ‘get the fuck off the stage, you’re shit’.”
She was similarly scathing about the show’s boss, Simon Cowell, noting that he “loves to be on TV” and “will do whatever he has to do to get that fucking fat face on TV”, though she did have some nice things to say.
“I like Simon, he’s been very good to me,” she insisted, before adding: “But he’s a fucking pain in the arse.”
Sharon’s dissatisfaction with the show is probably due to the fact that earlier in the interview, she told Howard Stern that she’d been unimpressed to learn she wasn’t making the same as her fellow judges.
“I have a clause in my contract: ‘favoured nations’,” she explained. “So Simon goes to the press and goes: this is the best 10 million I have ever spent [on the new judges]... and I’m like, ‘OK, I have ‘favoured nations’: where’s my fucking 10 million?’”
Clarifying the “favoured nations” clause means she should “make as much as everyone else”, Sharon said: “I’m waiting to hear... you want me, you have to pay what I’m worth.”
HuffPost UK has reached out to ‘The X Factor’ for comment.
This is far from the first time she’s been critical about her time as a talent show judge, claiming in 2014: “If one more person stands in front of me and sings, I tell you. I’ve had it with people singing at me and I’ve had it watching people sing on TV.
“They’ve all got something wrong - they’ve either got one lung, one kidney, they’ve all got somebody sick in hospital and it’s like, ‘Oh lord, just shut up and sing.’ But then when they sing, it’s like, ‘Please stop it. I can’t take it anymore.’”